Friday, January 30, 2009

Since headbands are about the only thing Julia will wear on her head unless it goes below -15 Celsius, I designed another one. Here is the pattern below.

Note: If any of you had printed this pattern off the first couple of days it was published, please reprint. I've corrected an error (4 cable repeats instead of 3).

Update (Jan. 13, 2011): Fellow knitter Olga (ignia on Ravelry) has created a very useful chart showing all the pattern stitches. You can find a link to it in this blog post.
(Jan. 8, 2014): Unfortunately, it seems as if the chart is no longer available.

Wide Cabled Headband

I made this headband with Elann Peruvian Uros Aran (wool/llama), but you can substitute any aran-weight yarn (one that gives 18 stitches and 24 rows over 4 inches square using stockinette stitch). Approximately 50-60 metres were used. You can also use worsted weight yarn (20 stitches and 26 rows over 4 inches square), in which case you should add 4 more rows of ribbing at each end.Materials:1 50g skein of Elann Uros Aran (83 metres / 91 yards)
1 pair 4.5mm knitting needles
1 cable needle

Measurements:
4.5 inches by 19 inches

Size:
One size, stretches to about 21 inches.

Gauge:
Each 12-row repeat of the cable pattern is approximately 1.8 inches in length.Abbreviations:
C4: slip next two stitches onto a cable needle and move to front of work; knit next two stitches on left-hand needle and then knit two stitches from cable needle
T3R: slip next stitch to cable needle and move to back of work; knit next two stitches on left-hand needle and then purl the stitch from the cable needle
T3L: slip next two stitches to cable needle and move to front of work; purl next stitch on left-hand needle and then knit the two stitches from the cable needle
M1: make an additional stitch by working into the previous row between the current and next stitch
M1P: M1 purlwise
SSK: decrease one stitch with a slip, slip, knit
K2tog: knit two together
P2tog: purl two together

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Julia turns 14 years old today! She dashed off to school today before I had a chance to get a new photo, so here she is, a month ago, at Hong Kong Disneyland. It's definitely not shorts weather here today. We're going to celebrate with birthday cake tonight and a meal at her favourite Viet-Thai restaurant on the weekend. Happy Birthday, Julia! We all love you and wish you a great year to come!

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Here's the first Sunday Craft Update of the new year. I bought way too much yarn in December, and now I'm trying to use it up. I made more headbands/earwarmers for Julia, including a bright pink one with matching mittens. I haven't been able to pin her down long enough to get a photo of her wearing both the headband and mittens, though. I also finished this elephant for Julia from Amigurumi World by Ana Paula Rimoli. Now I have to turn to some projects for Kate, who has requested a long cardigan, an afghan and more amigurumi animals. Maybe one day, I'll have time to knit for myself again.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Here, finally, is the last post about our vacation that I had intended to write the first week of January. It took me a week to get over the jet lag and another two weeks to get over the cold that each of us in the family succumbed to in succession. No more excuses ... here is what happened at Hong Kong Disneyland.

We went to Hong Kong Disneyland by subway, which is the most sensible way to get anywhere in Hong Kong. Kate got pretty excited when she saw the mouse-ear windows on the train that connects the theme park to the rest of the city. We were happy to see that the park wasn't crowded when we arrived. The cool and damp weather seemed to discourage the locals and other tourists, but to us, it was quite pleasant. Many of those willing to brave the 15 degrees Celsius temperatures were sporting hats, mittens and even parkas. Yes, parkas -- those big puffy things we put on when it goes below zero degrees and there's at least a few centimetres of snow on the ground. Really, how can you look cool shooting down the villains on the Buzz Lightyear ride wearing a parka? Julia stayed in shorts the whole day, even though I'd packed long pants for her in our backpack. Can you spot the Canadian girl in the crowd?

Hong Kong Disneyland is much smaller than the Florida's Disneyworld, but it was just the right amount of entertainment for us to fill up the day. Julia felt a bit queasy after her first ride on Space Mountain but recovered sufficiently to go back on a few more times. The rest of us stuck to the tamer rides. Of course, we had to do the "It's a Small World" ride. I love the displays in that ride and could have gone through several more times; instead, I had to be satisfied with hearing Kate sign the song over and over the next three days. The Winnie-the-Pooh ride was also a must-do for us. This time, we didn't get stuck in the psychedelic Heffalumps and Woozles section like we did in Florida several years ago.

Oliver wanted to meet all the characters, so Joe and Jill went off on their own for a while. Our kids opted for rides, but Kate did want to visit Mickey's Christmas House, where she got to have her photo taken with the man himself. She was also thrilled to find in Mickey's house a framed picture that matched a Walt Disney cross-stitch picture made by Jill and hanging in Oliver's room.

The final photos below aren't from Disneyland but I wanted to include a few from our visit to Ocean Park on New Year's Day. Ocean Park is a huge marine-themed amusement park set high up on a hill. The weather was wonderful and we had a fun day with Joe, Jill, Martin and Oliver before having to say a sad farewell to them the next day. We had a wonderful two weeks with them and hope we see them all again before too long.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

We spent the last few days of our vacation in Hong Kong, with Jill, Joe, Oliver and Martin. We're back home in Canada now, but I'm just getting to updating the blog now. The days in Hong Kong were busy, busy, busy (as Hong Kong is) so the computer remained untouched for most of that time.

We stayed in the Mong Kok district, which supposedly has the highest population density in the world. Jammed into a subway car with barely enough room to stand, I believed it. We splurged and stayed at a very nice hotel. This bit of extravagence was made possible by the fact that we had free accommodation (thanks to Joe and Jill) and incredibly low food costs in Singapore, and also because Todd booked us the itinerary-from-hell to save us $1000 CDN per ticket on our flights. Miraculously, despite the so-called "snowmaggedon", we completed our flights with no significant delays, no misplaced luggage, and only a low-to-moderate amount of whining from the kids about the long travel days.

The hotel had two great things going for it. It had a large, beautiful, heated outdoor pool in which you can listen to piped-in classical music when underwater. It also included a magnificent breakfast buffet. Kate and I both love breakfast, and getting an East/West breakfast is certainly the best of both worlds: congee, smoked salmon, oatmeal, dim sum dumplings, .... yum! Kate's big thrill was sneaking chocolate croissants when I wasn't looking. The hotel had a very comfortable bar/lounge with an intriguing offer: an all-you-can-drink buffet (beer, house wine, common mixed drinks, juice, tea) for the equivalent of $20 CDN over a three-hour period. The host assured me that, if I would consume a minimum of four beverages, I'd most definitely get my money's worth. I was tempted, mainly because free snacks (spring rolls, satay skewers and dumplings -- no boring Western bar snacks here!) accompanied the drinks, but I declined, as I can't possibly consume four drinks in one sitting and still be responsible for the children. Despite this great $20 deal, the bar wasn't packed; there's probably a very good reason why such buffets don't exist in Canada.

In Hong Kong, we spent a very fun three days touring, covering Hong Kong Disney, the Hong Kong History Museum, Stanley Market, and Ocean Park. More on this in the next blog posts.